Monthly Archives: February 2018

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 3

Lou Criger (1872)
Slim Sallee (1885)
Larry MacPhail (1890)
Joe Stripp (1903)
Buck Ross (1915)
Dick Tracewski (1935)
Joe Coleman (1947)
Bake McBride (1949)
Fred Lynn (1952)
Ronald Williamson (1953)
Fred Toliver (1961)
Joe Klink (1962)
Scott Klingenbeck (1971)
Skip Schumaker (1980)
B. J. Garbe (1981)

Larry MacPhail was the general manager of Cincinnati (1933-36) and Brooklyn (1938-42) and was president and part-owner of the Yankees (1946-47).  His son Lee MacPhail was president of the American League and his grandson Andy MacPhail was the general manager of the Twins (1985-94) and the president of the Cubs (2000-02), the Orioles (2007-2015), and the Phillies (2015-present).

Ronald Williamson was a catcher in the Oakland organization from 1971-1973.  In 1988, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.  He was cleared in 1999 through DNA testing and became the subject of John Grisham’s first non-fiction book, “The Innocent Man.”  Williamson passed away from cirrhosis in 2004.

Outfielder B. J. Garbe was chosen by the Twins with the fifth pick of the 1999 draft.  He was with the Twins through 2004, ended his career in 2006, and never got higher than AA.

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Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game One Hundred Twenty-one

BALTIMORE 6, MINNESOTA 5 IN MINNESOTA (14 INNINGS)

Date:  Wednesday, August 14.

Batting stars:  Jacque Jones was 3-for-5 with two doubles and three runs.  David Ortiz was 2-for-4 with a double.  Torii Hunter was 2-for-7 with a stolen base, his nineteenth.

Pitching stars:  Brad Radke pitched six innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk and striking out three.  Bob Wells pitched two shutout innings, giving up a walk.  LaTroy Hawkins pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Melvin Mora was 3-for-5 with a triple, a double, and a walk.  Tony Batista was 2-for-5 with two doubles and a walk.  Rick Bauer pitched four shutout innings, giving up three hits.

The game:  Mora led off the game with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead.  The Twins tied it in the bottom of the first when Jones doubled and scored on Hunter's single.  The Twins took a 3-1 lead in the second when Luis Rivas hit an RBI triple and scored on Jones' single.  Mora struck again in the third, getting an RBI single to cut the Twins lead to 3-2.  In the fifth, Jones and Ortiz each doubled to put the Twins back up by two at 4-2.  Mora and Batista each doubled in the sixth to make it 4-3.  Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the ninth and gave up doubles to the first two batters he faced, Batista and Jay Gibbons, to tie the score 4-4.  Gibbons went to third on a fly out and scored on a ground out to give the Baltimore a 5-4 advantage.  The Twins tied it in the ninth on an error and a Corey Koskie RBI single.  The Twins would not get a man past first after that.  With two out in the top of the fourteenth, Geronimo Gil hit a home run, his ninth of the season and one of nineteen in his career, to win the game for the Orioles.

WP:  Bauer (6-4).  LP:  Tony Fiore (9-3).  S:  None.

Notes:  Michael Cuddyer started the game in right field, going 0-for-2 with a walk.  Bobby Kielty pinch-hit for him in the eighth.

Hunter was now batting .305.

A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 to make his average .302.

Hawkins lowered his ERA to 2.21.

J. C Romero pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two walks.  His ERA was now 1.67.

It was Guardado's first blown save since July 12.

Fiore pitched well other than the home run.  He went three innings, giving up two hits and a walk and striking out one.

Rick Bauer was a fifth-round draft choice of the Orioles in 1997.  He was a starting pitcher throughout his minor league career and made six starts as a September call-up in 2001, but made only four more starts the rest of his career, presumably of the emergency variety.  He was nothing special in the six starts, but wasn't bad either, posting an ERA of 4.64 with a WHIP of 1.33.  Still, the Orioles clearly felt he was more valuable to them in the bullpen.  That isn't all that clear from the numbers, as he went 8-8, 1 save, 4.57 in 119 appearances from 2002-2005.  All but the 2002 season included time in AAA where, oddly enough, they had him starting.  The Orioles gave up on him in 2005, releasing him mid-way through the season.  He then got a scenic tour, spending 2006 with Texas (where he had the best year of his career, 3-1, 3.55 in 71 innings), 2007 in AAA with Philadelphia and the Dodgers, 2008 in the minors with Cleveland and Toronto (making four appearances in the majors with the Indians), 2009 pitching in Korea and the Atlantic League, 2010 under contract with Colorado for three days and then back to the Atlantic League, out of baseball in 2011, and in the North American Baseball League in 2012.  His major league numbers for all that are 11-14, 4.51, 3 saves, 1.40 WHIP.  He appeared in 187 games, starting ten of them, and pitched 317 innings over parts of seven seasons.  At last report, Rick Bauer was a pitching instructor for Area 615, a baseball training facility in Franklin, Tennessee.

Record:  The Twins were 71-50, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 2

Orval Overall (1881)
George Halas (1895)
Willie Kamm (1900)
Wes Ferrell (1908)
Red Schoendienst (1923)
George Toma (1929)
Don Buford (1937)
Max Alvis (1938)
Dale Murray (1950)
John Tudor (1954)
Pat Tabler (1958)
Buddy Biancalana (1960)
Scott Erickson (1968)
Melvin Mora (1972)
Adam Everett (1977)
Ronny Cedeno (1983)
Jason Vargas (1983)
Logan Darnell (1989)

Better known as a football coach, George Halas was an outfielder and played in 12 games for the Yankees in 1919.

Groundskeeper George Toma is a charter member of the Groundskeepers' Hall of Fame.  It is to be hoped that he will eventually be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame as well.

We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to meat and to Mama SoCal.

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Keeping Track

2002 Rewind: Game One Hundred Twenty

MINNESOTA 6, BALTIMORE 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, August 13.

Batting stars:  Doug Mientkiewicz was 3-for-4 with two home runs (his seventh and eighth) and a double, driving in three.  David Ortiz was 2-for-4 with a home run (his fourteenth) and a double, driving in three.  Jacque Jones was 2-for-2 with two walks.

Pitching star:  Rick Reed pitched a complete game shutout, giving up five hits and a walk and striking out four.

Opposition stars:  Geronimo Gil was 2-for-3.  Jeff Conine was 2-for-4.  Chris Brock struck out two in 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up one hit.

The game:  There was no score, and no threat of a score, until the fourth.  Jones led off the inning with a walk and Cristian Guzman singled.  With one out, Ortiz hit a two-run double to put the Twins on the board.  With two out, Mientkiewicz hit a two-run homer to put the Twins up 4-0.  They added two more in the sixth on solo homers by Ortiz and Mientkiewicz.  The Orioles got men to first and second in the fifth on a pair of singles and did so again in the same way in the seventh, but did not advance a man past second base.

WP:  Reed (10-6).  LP:  Scott Erickson (5-11).  S:  None.

Notes:  Torii Hunter was 1-for-4 and was batting .306.

A. J. Pierzynski was 0-for-4 to drop his average to .305.

People seem to remember David Ortiz as having been a bust with the Twins.  In this season, his last with the Twins, he batted .272/.339/.500 with 20 homers and 32 doubles.  Those might not be "Big Papi" numbers, but it's hardly a bust.

By game scores, this was Reed's second-best game of the season, barely beaten by a complete game in May.  Given that he gave up a run in that game and pitched a shutout in this one, it could certainly be argued that his was a better game.

This was catcher Geronimo Gil's only season as a regular.  Originally signed by the Dodgers, he was traded to Baltimore in 2001 and came up to the Orioles as a September call-up that year.  He had hit well enough in the minors, but much of his time was spent in San Antonio and Las Vegas, both places where offensive numbers tend to be a little inflated.  In this, his only full season in the majors, he batted .232/.270/.363, numbers which simply aren't good enough unless you're a tremendous defensive player.  One assumes he was considered good behind the plate, but I could not really find out anything about that one way or another.  He did throw out runners on 36% of steal attempts in 2002 (31% for his career), but of course there's a lot more to being a defensive catcher than that.  The Orioles must have decided that his defensive abilities weren't enough, though, because he never got more than 169 at-bats in a season after this.  And it's not like he was replaced by a Hall of Famer, either:  Brook Fordyce was the regular in 2003.  Gil stayed with the Orioles through 2005, then was released at the end of spring training 2006.  He played in Mexico that year, then signed with Colorado in 2007. getting fourteen more major league at-bats.  He kept playing Mexico all the way through 2016, although in his last year he had only nine at-bats.  At last report he was living in Lagunas, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Record:  The Twins were 71-49, in first place, leading Chicago by thirteen games.

Keeping Track

Happy Birthday–February 1

Billy Sullivan (1875)
Rosey Rowswell (1884)
Candy Jim Taylor (1884)
Frank Lane (1896)
Carl Reynolds (1903)
Paul Blair (1944)
Danny Thompson (1947)
Mark Souza (1954)
Ernie Camacho (1955)
Cecilio Guante (1960)
Tim Naehring (1967)
Kent Mercker (1968)
Rich Becker (1972)

Rosey Rowswell was a broadcaster for Pittsburgh from 1936-1954.  Bob Prince considered Rowswell his mentor.

Candy Jim Taylor was a star player and manager in the Negro Leagues for many years.

Frank Lane was the general manager of the White Sox (1948-55), St. Louis (1956-57), Cleveland (1958-60), Kansas City (1961), and Milwaukee (1971-72).

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